BRUNO Alves believes Rangers have to learn to cope with the pressure of playing in front of a full house at Ibrox to enjoy a successful campaign after losing their fourth league game at home this season.
The Portuguese centre half and his team mates, who had previously been defeated at their Govan ground by Hibernian, Celtic and Hamilton, lost 3-1 to St. Johnstone on Saturday.
The Rangers fans in the 47,923-strong crowd turned on Graeme Murty’s players in the second half as Tommy Wright’s men romped to what was a richly-deserved triumph.
Former Porto, Zeni St. Petersburg and Fenerbahce defender Alves feels in future Rangers have to try not to panic when they fall behind and supporters start giving them stick.
“It is very disappointing to lose at home because we get more motivation and more support from the fans,” he said. “ We are always playing in a full stadium. It’s amazing. Even in away games, we have a lot of support.
“But sometimes with a big team there is pressure, especially when we concede goals. We need to know how to handle the pressure because the pressure will always be there for the big teams.
“If we know how to handle the pressure better, we can have better results. Sometimes we need to have more patience with the ball. Sometimes it is not the best way to play fast. Sometimes we need to move the ball and wait for a better chance or a different solution.
“It’s always a difficult situation when you need to score. We want to make everything faster. We need to be prepared when results are not the best for us. We need to be confident and patient to change results.
Read more: Chris Millar on how Cesc Fabregas inspired his commanding display in St. Johnstone's historic Ibrox win
“Sometimes when we concede a goal, we have to be patient, move the ball and wait for a better solution or a better decision. It’s about handling the pressure and being patient and believing that we can score.”
Alves added: It’s very difficult. We are disappointed after four wins. it shouldn’t happen, especially at home. But we are trying to do better. We need to learn from our mistakes, keep moving forward and try to win our next games.
“It’s difficult to find a reason. We had the motivation after four wins. Sometimes these things happen in football. We need to watch the game again, see what we did wrong and try not to make the same mistakes in our next games."
Alves feels that Rangers have to be more wary of their opponents counter attacking against them in games at Ibrox that they dominate than they have been at times this season.
The 35-year-old, though, has praised the St. Johnstone players for the quality of the goals they scored at Ibrox at the weekend and insisted they were not due to errors by his team.
“From what I remember of the goals, I don’t believe they were mistakes,” he said. “It was a good shot, a good header. Sometimes it is not just mistakes. Sometimes you need to value what the opponent did and the quality.
“I don’t believe they were mistakes, but we need to be more focused and try to be more away from our box and prevent the counter-attack. We are always attacking, but we also need to prepare to defend when we lose the ball.”
Murty’s side went in to the game on the back of a four game winning run after back-to-back triumphs over Aberdeen and victories over Ross County and Hibernian.
The loss saw Aberdeen, who had earlier defeated Hibs 4-1 at Pittodrie, move three points ahead of Rangers in second place in the Premiership table.
But Alves denied that the Ibrox club only raise their games for big matches and is still hopeful they can enjoy a good season and finish runners-up in the league.
“I don’t think we change the mentality for different games,” he said. “When you play for Rangers, you always need to have the motivation and be prepared to play against all the teams.
Read more: Chris Millar on how Cesc Fabregas inspired his commanding display in St. Johnstone's historic Ibrox win
“I think we have the quality to show that we can do it. We need the support of everybody. We still believe that we can reach the position that we want and the main goals we want.
“We want to win all the games and see what we can do. We cannot think about the end. We need to think game by game, be stronger as a team and not concede so many goals. We need to be prepared for that.”
Rangers were missing Graham Dorrans, Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace on Saturday, but Alves is adamant they can cope without the experienced trio and win games.
“We need everybody to improve the team,” he said. “We need experience, but we also need young, fresh talent to bring something to the team.
“Sometimes experience is not enough. We also need quality, speed, a lot of things that I believe the team have.
“Of course, these players that you mention are important, but everybody together can do it. We want to perform well. We want to reach the position that everybody believes the team can be.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel